


Shifting

by yodepalma



Series: Dragon Scars [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Crack, Dragon Elicia Hughes, Dragon Gracia Hughes, Dragon Maes Hughes, Dragon Roy Mustang, Dragons, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Schmoop, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7248058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yodepalma/pseuds/yodepalma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hughes,” Roy says with a bemused calm he doesn't quite feel, “are you aware that your house is on fire?”</p>
<p>“Yes, isn't it just <i>wonderful</i>?” Maes gushes, beaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shifting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kairi-ou (Ri_ou)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ri_ou/gifts).



> for Kairi, who pretty much co-wrote this story with me via twitter. <3 
> 
> Chronologically, this is the first story in the series. WOO, FINALLY. I'm not entirely certain how long it occurs before the rest. Elicia is...probably 4ish in this one? Old enough to be potty-trained, young enough not to be in school yet.
> 
> A COUPLE NOTES:  
> 1) The rest of the series is NOT going to be fluffy cracky schmoop like these first three pieces have been, and I've tried to hint at it a bit in here. But for the most part this story is just more light-hearted fun.  
> 2) Did I warn you yet that this 'verse is part space opera? Because this verse is part space opera. I wanted shape-shifting dragon soulmates with magic IN SPACE. Just piling on the tropes here, people. Just piling on the tropes. <3  
> 3) Maes is the actual best character to write, omg. I love him best.  
> 4) Dragon children are called "cubs" mostly because I was running on the "dragons are basically cats" theme, but they're _big_ cats, so. :3

_Shifting_

They're just entering atmo when they get the unexpected call from Maes, and Roy freezes for a second as he stares at the blinking light on the console letting him know a request is coming in. Hawkeye is the one who accepts it, calmly hitting the button on the arm of the command chair—a complete lack of protocol that would irritate Roy if anyone else had done it. But Hawkeye gets away with things that nobody else could ever hope to, because their lives have been inextricably twined for years, ever since they'd been children and had discovered the bonds that would one day make them part of a single extended pack. (One day, but not yet. They treated each other as siblings already anyway, and it had driven their superiors crazy.)

By the time the fritzing holoscreen has managed to flicker on, Roy has already pulled himself together and is the very picture of serenity. This is ruined by the state his best friend is in: Maes is leaning against the doorjamb of what looks like his daughter's bedroom, glasses askew, hair and clothes hopelessly disheveled, wild-eyed and grinning like the first day he'd met Gracia all over again. Roy blinks slowly, leaning forward in his chair a little. Behind him, Hawkeye makes a little noise of distressed amusement.

“Hughes,” Roy says with a bemused calm he doesn't quite feel, “are you aware that your house is on fire?”

“Yes, isn't it just _wonderful_?” Maes gushes, beaming. Havoc has now started snickering, and is attempting to poke Breda awake so he can share in the entertainment. “It just happened this morning, we went to wake her up for breakfast and there she was! She's so adorable, you've never seen _anything_ so cute, Roy, you're just going to adore her! Ahhhh, they grow up so fast, I can't believe it's happened already!”

“I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not quite following the conversation,” Falman speaks up with some reluctance. Several years out of hell, and he still isn't comfortable with life as a civilian and treating his former superiors as friends.

“My precious, perfect, adorable little princess,” Hughes starts. Roy clears his throat before he can continue an endless diatribe about how much he loves his daughter. “Ah, that is, Elicia shifted into her dragon form for the first time this morning! And she's absolutely stunning, she's a beautiful pale rose-gold, and you know that means she'll lighten into Gracia’s white when she's older. I'm so happy I could _sing_.”

“Spare us,” Roy advises dryly.

“Maes, why did you call us to tell us?” Hawkeye asks, ever practical. “You knew we were on our way in already. We're all of course thrilled for this momentous occasion in your life, but the announcement could easily have waited until we arrived.”

Maes wilts a little, and the happiness in his demeanor makes way for a small amount of embarrassment. He coughs nervously into his arm, making the picture jump sporadically. “I was wondering how far out you were,” he says.

“We're about to dock,” Roy replies, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “What's gone wrong?”

Maes hesitates, embarrassment growing until he even starts to blush a little. “Ah, I'm sure it's nothing, she's probably just being stubborn. But she can't seem to turn back, and I was hoping maybe seeing you would help.”

Roy puts his face in his hand to hide a helpless smile, even though he knows he isn't fooling anyone.

“We'll be there shortly, Maes,” he says, and manages to hold in the bubble of laughter until his best friend's image has disappeared.

It takes them a few hours to troop out to Maes’s house. The tiny three-bedroom abode is hidden in plain view in a suburb on a heavily-populated planet, which is great for everything except being in a hurry. The traffic is unparalleled on any other planet Roy has ever been to, but flying is absolutely out of the question. There are no civilian Dragons since Bradley managed to take their planet down.

Eventually, _finally_ , they get to Maes’s street, and Roy is practically vibrating with excitement by the time they get there. New cubs have always been something of a big deal among their people, and Elicia is the only child Roy has known. To be witness to a milestone like her First Shifting, to sit in on the celebrations for a pack that technically isn't his, is an honor, and his instincts are thrumming with excitement. He can't quite understand how Hawkeye is calm enough to be driving, but then Hawkeye has always been something of a rarity in self-control among Dragons.

It's actually painful for him to keep a dignified pace as he walks up to the door of his friend’s house, but it won't do any of them any good if it looks like this is anything other than a casual visit. He still shifts impatiently after knocking, and is considering just bursting into the house himself when the door finally opens.

Hughes looks even worse than he had before, dark purple scales creeping up the side of his face and his green eyes taking on a more reptilian shape. Alarmed, Roy ushers him back inside with a hand on his elbow. Hawkeye hovers at his back supportively.

“The rest of you go wait in the living room,” Roy snaps, an order that most of them will obey instinctively. Falman is the only one who jumps even a little, but he rarely questions commands. It isn't until the four men are in the living room that Roy hears Havoc ask what's going on, but by then he's already got his attention focused on Maes again.

“Are you okay?” he asks urgently, then realizes how ridiculous the question is. “Are Elicia and Gracia okay?” he corrects.

“I think so,” Maes says, leading the way down the hallway. “We're having trouble keeping up with the fires, and we just don't know how to tell if Elicia won't turn back, or if she _can't_. And she can't talk to tell us. Is that normal? I think it's normal the first time, but I don't remember for certain, and I'm worried, Roy, what if something is wrong? I could lose her, and it would just kill Gracia, and—”

Roy stops Maes forcefully, turns him around and holds him in place until he looks Roy in the eyes. Maes isn't really meant to be a pack leader, not naturally an alpha and too fond of taking on his confrontations from behind the scenes, but in these strange times and with only his small family to take care of, he's all the three of them have. Especially with Roy constantly on the wing.

“I'm sure Elicia’s just being stubborn because she's enjoying being a dragon so much,” Roy says with complete certainty. “She does seem to take after her father a great deal after all, and I seem to recall somebody buying a second safe house in the woods after complaining at length about never being able to stretch his wings.”

“It's a perfectly sound investment!” Maes protests reflexively. “We need something to fall back on if this one is discovered!”

“And she'll learn to talk as a dragon eventually,” Roy adds. “I do happen to remember, since I was required to know these things despite myself.”

He smiles wryly, and the scales on Maes’s face start to fade as he gives Roy a sympathetic look. Before he can say anything, Roy claps him once on the shoulder in a friendly way, and tells Maes and Hawkeye both to stay in the hallway while he tries to coax Elicia back into human form.

“Hello, Roy,” Gracia greets him warmly when he steps into the bedroom. She looks happy but exhausted, sitting cross-legged in a corner of the room and flipping absently through a children's book. Part of her long skirt has been burnt away to reveal one leg up to her knee, but she seems unconcerned about it as she looks up at him. “I take it Maes has told you the good news?”

“At length, multiple times,” Roy assures her, but with fondness. They share a slightly exasperated smile, and then Gracia sighs and nods at the bed. It's much larger than a child should need—in fact, the whole bedroom is—but that's not taking into account the fact that the child in question might sometimes like to take on a much larger form. The dragon cub, curled up with its nose in its tail for a nap, takes up fully half of the bed.

“She's tired herself out with all the rampaging and the fire,” Gracia explains. “We'd hoped she'd turn back when she curled up for sleep an hour ago, but she hasn't even twitched. I have no idea what to do.”

Roy honestly doesn't know where to begin either, but he isn't in any hurry to admit that. He sits down on the bed next to the cub and runs a hand down her back, marveling at the feel of the prickly juvenile scales. There'd been a time not too long ago when he thought he'd never get to see a cub, that his race would die out completely with his generation, and now here’s this perfect creature curled up next to him.

And there will be more, one day. Hawkeye has a soulmate waiting for her as well, and there are so many men and women they'd left behind—

Roy shakes his head sharply as if a fly had landed on it, refocusing himself on the present. There will be plenty of other times to think about the future; right now he has a stubborn cub and a good friend’s sanity to worry about. He gives Elicia a gentle little shake.

“Elicia, it's time to wake up!” he says brightly, ignoring the discontent little growl she gives him. “Naptime’s over! Don't you want to play with Uncle Roy?”

The sound of his name works like magic. She perks up as if she'd never been asleep at all, giving a happy little yip, and pounces. Roy is knocked onto his back on the floor, the weight of a baby dragon pinning him to the ground as Elicia rubs the side of her face against his, and all he can do is laugh.

“I'm happy to see you too, Sweetheart,” he says, kissing the side of her head. “Are you going to let me up?”

Elicia gives a rumbling growl-purr and sits down on his stomach. Roy rolls his eyes—he hadn't actually expected any other response—and sets to wrestling her off of him. It's a fun little game, testing the strength of his human body against that of a dragon cub, and for a long few minutes he forgets why he's doing it to begin with.

He wins, of course. He isn't as weak as a normal human, and Elicia is fighting on instinct besides, so the result is inevitable. The cub still pouts, putting her head on her paws and looking betrayed.

“Sorry, but it'll be a while yet before you can win that fight,” Roy tells her seriously, rubbing her head affectionately. “And if you beat your dad it's because he's a pushover, hardly any competition at all.”

“Hey!” Maes says from the hallway.

Elicia pouts more, then gets up and crawls into Roy's lap. She rests her head on Roy's shoulder, whining pathetically, and Roy automatically hugs her close in an effort to appease her.

“Will you turn back into a human for me, Elicia?” he asks softly. “Everyone's here to see you, but not all of the men can handle dragon cubs. And I'd like to see your pretty smile.”

Elicia growls a little, digging sharp claws into Roy's legs. Roy sighs, shifting uncomfortably.

“Elicia,” he says. “Your claws are hurting me.”

Elicia yelps and climbs back off his lap, looking horrified, but doesn't turn back into a human. This makes Roy frown, and he gets up from the floor, leaning over her in concern.

“Are you not able to turn back?” he asks quietly. “Is that the problem?”

Hell, he hopes it isn't. He has no idea where he'll go for help if that’s the case; any Dragon doctors are strictly under Alliance control, and there's no way he'll be able to get anywhere near them.

Thankfully, Elicia is emphatically shaking her head, and she sits back on her haunches and glares up at him. If she'd been human, her arms would have been crossed. The view makes Roy smile.

“I see. So you won't even turn back for me? I suppose we should just leave.” He turns to walk out of the bedroom, but Elicia makes an absurd noise of denial and latches on to his sleeve with her teeth. Roy looks down at her with his eyebrows raised. “Well, turn back then.”

The cub glares fiercely at him in answer, not letting go of his sleeve.

Roy is out of ideas at this point. He's loathe to _really_ order Elicia to turn back, not wanting to overstep his boundaries into Maes’s pack more than he already is (even though he suspects Maes wouldn't mind), and there is little he can bribe the cub with that she can only have when she’s human. So he does what he always does when he doesn't know what to do: he turns imploring eyes toward Hawkeye.

Hawkeye sighs, and steps around Maes to enter the bedroom as well. Elicia perks up again at the sight of her, but doesn't pounce as she'd done with Roy.

“Elicia,” Hawkeye says in her serious voice. “If you don't turn back into a human, I'm afraid I won't be able to play with you today.”

Elicia whines, one long, high note. Then she shifts abruptly back into her human form, a tiny little thing with bedhead and blinding pink pajamas, and smiles as if she hadn't driven her father into an emotionally stressed half-shift.

“Hi, Aunt Riza!” she says brightly, rushing forward. She stops at Hawkeye’s toes and holds her hands up, a request to be picked up that the woman immediately complies with. “Uncle Roy never lets me win any of our fights.”

“Alphas are unexplainable, I'm afraid,” Hawkeye says, calmly carrying Elicia from the room. “It's best to just humor him so he doesn't get cranky.”

“Thank you for your help, Roy,” Gracia says softly, coming over to give him a peck on the cheek before she follows after Hawkeye. “I'm going to fix everyone something for lunch and get a cake started. Elicia deserves something special for her first shift!”

“ _Did_ I help?” Roy asks ruefully after she leaves the room, turning to Maes. But Maes isn't paying attention to him. He's staring after the women, a tragic expression on his face that would have done some of the ancient playwrights proud. “What in the ‘verse is wrong now?”

“Riza came in, and she shifted back just like that,” Maes says dramatically, tears brimming in his eyes. “Aren't I her favorite anymore? Have I been usurped by Riza Hawkeye already? How can my most amazing, my most precious, my most—”

Roy rolls his eyes and strides out of the room, leaving Maes to his dramatics. The man probably won't even notice he's gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I have 10000% been planning to write this story for like two months now, but only managed to write it today because, hey, guess who's on vacation this week?? And decided that human interaction is just not a thing I can handle today? So I decided I would fic today and magically wrote an entire 2.5k story in like three hours? Today was a good day. Except for the strange desire to scream/cry every time someone talks in my general direction, that's kind of stressful.
> 
> P.S. I feel it's worth noting that despite mentioning alphas several times over the course of this story, there won't be a/b/o dynamics in this series. "Alpha" in this case more refers to a sort of leadership hierarchy, and while I can't say this has nothing to do with sexual relations among dragons (because pheromones [explains the biologist, informatively]), there are a few reasons I won't be delving into it. Starting with my complete discomfort in writing that kind of thing. ._.


End file.
